Thinking About Tattoos

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Back in 1989, when the Re/Search book Modern Primitives appeared, I was living in Seattle and saw the ripples it caused. Within a few very short years people who weren’t ex-cons, ex-service or gang members were wearing barbed wire and Celtic design tattoo bands around biceps and calves, and a healthy smattering of California’s finest tattoo artists had set up shop in the Emerald City.

Nowadays I’m back in England and until last week I worked a few hours a week in a corner shop. Both there and in supermarkets- everywhere, in fact – I’ve been quite amazed at the number of men of all ages with tattoos. There was a customer in his 20s, with a shaved head and menacing manner, with a scorpion on the side of his skull and a teardrop under his eye (and yes, I know what the latter is meant to signify). So many with tattoos on their necks. Women with them inside their forearms, on their backs, feet.

The speculation in the 90s, as the percentage of tattoos among white folk shot up, was that it was a need to belong, to feel part of a tribe. That was 20 years ago and tattoos are now more prevalent than ever, certainly in England. Is that sense of identity so lacking that the need to tattoos has become much greater? Does this explain the fact that so many EDL members seem to be tattooed in pictures (they all also seem to have shaved heads, but that’s another topic), this urge to belong?

Modern Primitives dealt not only with tattoos but also piercings, although (in England, anyway) the fad for them has passed.  That seems strange, given how widespread they became. But why do tattoos remain so vital? I do genuinely want ideas and opinions. If you have a tat, why did you get it? Do you want more? What do you think is the reason so many have/desire them?

Coming Home to Leeds

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Any week now I’ll be living in Leeds again. I’ve been telling myself that for the last several weeks. We’re in that strange legal limbo, the no-man’s land between selling and buying a house and actually signing the contracts then moving in. It’s an odd space, where time seems to expand, making a day feel like a week, a week like a month and – well, you get the picture.

I grew up in Leeds but I haven’t lived there since January 3, 1976. I’ve been back regularly, sometimes for a week or more at a time. But it’s only in recent years that I’ve realised it’s where I need to be, it’s where my heart lies. Most of my books are set there, albeit well in the past. I know it in my bones in a way I’ll never know anywhere else.

My partner’s daughter went to university there and stayed. She’s made a life for herself but she’s stayed close to her mother. Events have aligned in a way that makes this a perfect time to sell, buy and put ourselves in that great Yorkshire city.

It’s a big, daunting adventure, of course. And right now, after hanging around as lawyers do whatever it is they do in these situations, all we want is for it to be over. Most everything’s packed, boxes all over the house.

Soon, though, we’ll be in Leeds. And you know what? It’s going to feel just like coming home.

A New Richard Nottingham Short Story

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I like working with publishers. The knowledge that someone else, someone in the industry, thinks enough of my work to put their reputation on the line and put it out under their imprint is what every writer desires.

 

I’m proud of all the fiction I’ve put out (hey, I’m even proud of some of the non-fiction and all the music journalism). I want my name on it. But some things don’t fit into any publisher’s niche. A few weeks ago I wrote a short story featuring Richard Nottingham, Constable of Leeds. Those of you who know my work will know him.

 

What to do with it? In the past I’ve made stories available for free. This time, with a longer story, I wanted something a little more. So I decided to publish it for Kindle. Via Twitter and Facebook I know several writers who self-publish. Some of them are excellent writers, the equal of anyone traditionally published; others, less so. But with the rise of the ereader it’s become a very successful medium.

 

For me it’s an experiment. The story keeps the name of Richard Nottingham out there. I hope it’ll please those who like the books and that they’ll buy it and enjoy it. I also hope that some people who’ve never read the novels will take a look, think, hey, that’s pretty good, and want to discover more. Finally, it keeps everything simmering until the UK hardback publication of Fair and Tender Ladies at the end of September (January 2014 for the US and ebook). It may pique a little interest and raise the sales. We do what we can.

 

I priced the story as cheaply as Amazon would seem to allow. But it’s a story, 5,000 words, not a novel. It’s something to pass a few idle minutes, not to take over your life.

 

Have I raised your curiosity? I hope so – that’s the aim of this, after all. It’s 77p (or $1.16 – I asked for 99 cents but it seems to have gone out of my control in the US). You’d spend that much of a bar of chocolate. Much more on a coffee or a cup of tea.

 

Oh, and you can buy it here in the UK.

 

Or here in America.

Thank you for your indulgence. I hope you like it if you buy it.

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The Government I Want

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The government I want will desire the best for its citizens – for all of them, not merely a few. It will look first to the welfare of the neediest and most deprived, to create a society that strives for equality, which those that have least given the most.

It will take ownership of the NHS, take responsibility for this most vital of services, not hold it at arm’s length, and keep it close, free from privatisation and profit, in the hands of the government and people, where it should be. It will be properly funded and staffed, a service of pride, not excuses.

The government I want won’t sell off its stock of social housing and then not replace it. Instead it will ensure that every person has a decent place to live, somewhere affordable. They will be a government that creates real jobs, not part-time employment or zero-hour contracts, and put into law that the minimum wage will be a living wage, one on which people can live, more barely exist.

The government I want will be made up of people of integrity, ones with no outside income or interests. Public servants in the truest sense, but also people with experience of the real world. No candidate would be eligible for selection until they’d held a job outside politics for 10 years, to know what existing on a wage packet means. Every expense would have to be justified, and every member of Parliament fully accountable to his or her constituents.

The government I want would tend to those who are disabled. It would ensure their carers were well paid, that they were trained and did a thorough job, that the companies carers worked for were thoroughly vetted.

The government I wanted would not be motivated by the profit to be found in everything, but by the way it could serve the people of the country. Sections of the population would not be demonised for political purpose. Politicians who lie to Parliament, especially to party ends, would be de-selected and dismissed without pensions. If what they did was illegal, they would be prosecuted without fear or favour, to the full extent of the law. Members of Parliament would receive a fair salary and expenses, but no raises beyond those of any other public servants.

The government I want would create fair taxation. No loopholes, no special exemptions, no deals made by HMRC with large corporations. Money earned in Great Britain would be taxed in Great Britain at the amount set in law. No excuses accepted.

The government I want would understand that this country is no longer a global power. Because of that, there’s no need to spend vast amounts on defence or to have a nuclear deterrent when the money involved could be spend for the benefit of people in the country.

The government I want would return public utilities – gas, electric, water, post office  – to public ownership and use the money that would otherwise have gone on profits for investment in infrastructure.

Does this sound socialist? Probably it does. More likely it sounds like the Labour manifesto from 1945. And it’s worth remembering that they won a landslide that year.

Gods of Gold

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Yesterday my agent heard back from the publisher which had been weighing whether to publish my new book. Needless to say, I’d been on tenterhooks (a good Leeds expression, by the way) since it had been sent off.

The result, as those who saw my Facebook and Twitter posts will know, is that Crème de la Crime will publish Gods of Gold in April next year – and four months later in the US, as usual.

So what is Gods of Gold? It’s the first in a new series set in Leeds, this time in the 1890s. The small town on Richard Nottingham’s time has grown and grown, bringing in the suburbs. It’s an industrial place now, full of dark Satanic mills and factories. Street after street is filled with back-to-back housing, the homes of the poor. Most of the buildings are black with soot from all the chimneys.

It’s a place much closer to the Leeds of the present day. Not just in time, but in attitude; it’s very recognisable. The main character is Detective Inspector Tom Harper. He’s 31, from a working-class background. Left school at the age of nine and worked 12 hours a day in a brewery, but was determined to become a policeman. He’s worked his way up from walking a beat in the yards and courts off Briggate – still around 160 years after my earlier Leeds series – to plain clothes.

His partner is Detective Sergeant Billy Reed, a man who spent time in the West Yorkshire Regiment and was in Afghanistan during the Second Afghan War. The nightmares of those times still come to him, leaving him a troubled man who finds it safer not to grow attached to people.

As the book opens, Harper’s wedding to Annabelle Atkinson is just a few weeks away. She’s a new type of women, not so much ahead of her time, but in the vanguard. After growing up very poor in the Bank – the area of Leeds where most of the Irish settled – she became a servant at the Victoria pub in Sheepscar. The landlord, an older widower, fell for her and married her. When he died, she took over the business and made it more successful, then opened two bakeries to cater for the working men at the factories all around. She’s based, in part at least, on stories about a relative of mine who was the landlady at the Victoria (the pub is now gone, turned into an Indian community centre. I did have a drink there once, back in the ‘90s, and it seemed a wonderful place). So a fictionalised version of my own family’s tale is one thread in the tapestry.

The books are more political. The first one unfolds over the backdrop of the 1890 Leeds Gas Strike, one that the workers won (and it’s well worth reading about the strike).

I suppose that this series is part of my continuing love affair with Leeds. The place won’t let me go – possibly just as well as I’ll be moving back there within a month. It’s the start of something new, and it pulls at me just as hard as Richard Nottingham ever has.

The big test, of course, will to be see how all of you like it…

A Third Leeds Story

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This will definitely, certainly, and unequivocally be the last story from Leeds, The Autobiography that I’ll post on the blog. After all, if I continue doing it there’ll be nothing fresh when I try to interest a publisher in the book. But no book that presumes to offer a history of Leeds would be complete without something about the great Ralph Thoresby, the antiquarian who wrote the first – and still the definitive – history of Leeds and its surroundings. A remarkable man, he’s commemorated by a blue plaque where his house once stood and Kirkgate and his memorial is in the Parish Church, although on the wall these days, not the floor of the choir.

 

MR. THORESBY’S CURIOSITIES – 1725

 

“It won’t do,” he said, shaking his head and pursing his lips. “It just won’t do.”

            “No, sir,” I agreed.

            Mr. Brocklehurst looked slowly around the room once more. He’d tied his stock too tightly in the morning and his large face had been red all day.

            “No,” he repeated. “It just won’t do.”

            But it would have to be done. Every item in this collection of curiosities needed to be catalogued. And I knew it wouldn’t fall to Brocklehurst the lawyer to do it. It would be my job, his clerk.

            Mr. Thoresby had amassed thousands upon thousands of objects during his life, so many that he’d needed to build an annexe to this modest house on Kirkgate for them all. Now he’d passed on his heirs needed an inventory of everything.

            I’d miss the man. He’d been my favourite of Mr. Brocklehurst’s clients. Whenever he’d visit the office he’d ask after my wife and children with honest interest. No matter that he was a gentleman with his independent means and I was no more than a law clerk.

            Even after his first stroke his mind had been alert. I’d come here several times with papers to be signed and he’d always been polite. He’d even insisted on showing me around this place, his museum as he called it with a wry little smile, and he’d pressed a copy of his book on me, his history of Leeds and the areas around it, picking it from a tall pile, blowing off the dust and inscribing it with his name, writing in an awkward scrawl. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that only gentlemen had the leisure for reading and learning. For the rest of us, life was made for work and sleep. So his Ducatus Leodiensis propped up a broken table leg in our house now, the gold letters on the spine growing dustier each month.

            Brocklehurst paced around the room, hands clasped together in the small of his back, pausing here and there to look at this and that. Finally he announced,

            “Well, you’d better get to work. And don’t be too long about it. I want you back in the office as soon as possible. There’s plenty of work among the living.”

            “Yes, sir.” I opened the ledger on an old table then set down the quill and the ink pot, hearing the door slam in the empty house as the lawyer left. I knew I should begin the task, but instead I walked to a shelf at the far end of the room and picked up a small object.

            I’d last been here two months earlier, no more than a fortnight before Mr. Thoresby suffered his second stroke and died. I’d come on a trifling errand, his signature on a note to append to an annuity. He’d been sitting in his parlour, lost in thought when I was shown through.

            “Young man,” he said with real pleasure, as if I’d been his first visitor in an age. He struggled to his feet with the help of a stick, putting out a heavy, palsied hand to grip mine. Wigless, he showed wisps of grey hair over a shiny pink skull, and a mouth that drooped on one side. But his eyes still twinkled. Over the last months he’d grown portly, his movements confined to his house or the streets close by. No more wanderings around England or setting off in the morning to walk to York and dine with the archbishop. And invalid now, his wide world had become so small. “Come with me, come on. I have something very special to show you,” he urged, his voice just an echo of the cannon boom it had once been.

            I followed him through to this room of wonders. He shuffled slowly, pausing two or three times to catch his breath. Yet once we reached the shelf and he reached out, it was as if his illness had never happened. His hand was steady as a youth’s and his thick sausage fingers were deft as he plucked up the item.

            “Do you see that?” he asked me, letting it sit on his palm. “The vicar in Rothwell sent it to me last week.” He displayed it like something precious but I had no idea what it could be. I wasn’t like him, I had no knowledge of these things, no chance to learn. My only learning had been letters and numbers before I had to earn my way in the world. It seemed nothing more than a piece of sharp stone, nothing of value. He saw my look and smiled. “Would you like me to tell you?”

            “Yes, sir, I would.” If it was important to him then it must have a purpose, I thought.

            “Long ago, before there was any Cambodunum, or Leodis or Leeds, long before anyone thought of a town here, there were people in this country,” he began. It wasn’t the chiding, strident tone of my old schoolmaster. Instead, there was enjoyment in his voice sharing these things with all the eagerness of an enthusiast.

            “Where did they live?” I wondered.

            “In caves, perhaps, or out in the open. We don’t know that yet,” he answered with a small sigh, as if he was disappointed that he’d never know. “But they hunted. They had to, for food. And they possessed spears and arrows, we do know that. And clubs, I suppose,” he added, as if it was an aside to himself. “This, young man, is an arrowhead made of flint.”

            Once he told me, I could discern the shape of it, the point at one end. It was delicate, crude yet carefully worked and I marvelled at how anyone could have made that so long ago and that it could still be found like this.

            “Just imagine,” Mr. Thoresby continued, “that a man might have killed many animals with this arrow. Perhaps it ended up in some beast that escaped him. Or maybe it was a wild shot he never found again. Or,” he winked at me, “he might simply have lost it somewhere.”

            He replaced the arrowhead on the shelf and we returned to the parlour to finish our business. Since then I’d thought of it often. I told my wife about it but she paid it little mind. Seeing an arrowhead wouldn’t put food on our table or clothe our children. It came to me later that I’d never asked him just how old it was. He would have known; after all, he was acknowledged to be the most learned man in Leeds. Now, though, he was interred under the choir of the Parish Church, his widow gone to live with one of their sons.

            I lifted the arrowhead very carefully, astonished that something with all this wait of years on it could be so light. I ran my thumb along the edge and gasped out loud to discover it was still sharp enough to cut the skin. How long had it taken to fashion something like this? What tools had he used? Suddenly I had so many questions ringing like Sunday morning bells in my head and no one to answer them.

            Furtively I looked around, as if there might be someone spying on me. It was a ridiculous fancy, of course. The house was all closed up, the shutters pulled tight, the air inside stuffy, still holding that old, desperate smell of disease and death that tugged at the nostrils. Then I took out my kerchief and gently wrapped it around the arrowhead. Another glance over my shoulder and I tucked it away in my coat pocket. No one would know. No one but me would count all the curiosities here.

Another Leeds Story

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Your reaction to the Roman Leeds story, and to the idea of a fictional history of Leeds in stories, has been so lovely that I’m going to post one more. This is from 1963, about as far from Roman times as this is going to get. It was the year England went boom! – although it took quite a while before the reverberations reached Leeds.

BEAT MUSIC

 

“Are you going?”

“Don’t be daft. Of course I’m going.” He hesitated. “If we can still get tickets.”

They were walking along Duncan Street, past Rawcliffe’s with all the neat, clean school uniforms in the window, crossing Briggate and out along Boar Lane.

“There’ll be tickets, they only went on sale half an hour ago,” James told him. “They won’t have sold out yet.”

“Hope not.” His fist was curled around the pound note in his pocket. Before taking the bus into Leeds he’d queued for ten minutes to draw it from his Post Office account. His father had disapproved, of course, wasting all that money on a pop concert. But it was just one more criticism on top of so many in the last year.

It was May, almost summer, and the air was warm enough to leave his windbreaker unzipped, the old grey school shirt underneath.

They turned by the station, down onto Bishopgate Street, through the tunnel under the tracks, bricks black and sooty, all the sound amplified. Now they were close to the Queen’s Hall he speeded up, his steps tapping quickly on the pavement.

“Did I tell you what my uncle did?”

James glanced over at him, keeping pace easily, wearing a striped tee shirt, a pair of American jeans his father had brought back from a trip, and his plimsolls. He looked relaxed, bemused by the whole idea of spending a little over ten bob to see a group.

“What?”

“You know he’s a commercial traveller?”

“Yes.”

“He was up in Sunderland last week, at the hotel where he always stays and sitting in the bar with the other salesmen there. You’ll never guess who was staying there and came walking in.”

“Go on,” Chris said with a smile. “You’re dying to tell me, anyway.”

“Only the Stones.”

“What, the Rolling Stones?”

James nodded and continued,

“My uncle and the others took one look at them and went off to talk to the manager. They said they weren’t going to stay in a place that let in animals. Either the Stones went or they did, and they were the ones who came back week after week.”

“Are you serious?” He was close to laughter, his soft smirk cracking into a grin. “What happened?”

“The manager kicked out the Stones.”

“Bloody hell.”

The words came out as astonishment. James followed his gaze and saw why. There were hundreds of people queueing outside the Queen’s Hall, all the way down the side of the building.

“We’re going to be here all day trying to get a ticket.”

“Worth it, though.” And it would be if he could get to see the Beatles. He hadn’t managed to buy a ticket for their show at the Odeon, but this would be bigger and better. They were even going to be onstage twice during the night. Any money, any length of time spent queuing would be worthwhile. “Going to stay?”

“I don’t know,” James answered doubtfully. “I said I’d be home by dinnertime to revise for my exams.”

Chris shrugged.

“Your loss. Take a look.”

“What?”

“Girls. Lots of girls” He grinned and pushed his quiff into place, the scent of Brylcreem on his hands, then began to walk to the end of the line. “But if you want to go, it’s OK. I don’t mind.”

 

In the end it only took an hour and a half to move to the ticket window. James tried to chat up the girls around them, but they weren’t interested; all they cared about was seeing the Beatles and he wasn’t John, Paul, Ringo or the other one. In the end there’d been nothing to do but enjoy the sunshine and wait.

            Chris bought his ticket, paid and began to turn away, when James said,

            “One for me, too.”

            “I thought you didn’t care about the music,” Chris said as they walked back towards Briggate.

            “I don’t,” he insisted briskly, it was true. For all his casual appearance, James was the perfect grammar school pupil. Piano to grade six, always at the top of his year, certain to do well in his O-levels next month. Then there’d be a smooth passage through the sixth form all the way to Cambridge. A boy to fulfil all his father’s aspirations.

            They’d known each other since primary school. On the second day James had stopped Chris from hitting a girl who’d bitten his arm. They’d been friends ever since, a curious bond that neither of them really understood.

            It would change soon enough, Chris knew that. He’d sit his exams then leave school. His father already had a job lined up for him, clerking in an office. The two of them would spend less time together, drifting apart. Probably in weeks rather than months. Somewhere in the future they’d bump into each other, say hello, and wonder how they’d ever been friends in the first place.

“Did you see how many were still waiting?” James asked.

            Chris shook his head.

            “There must have been at least another thousand behind us. It’s going to be something.” He shrugged. “I thought I might as well see it.”

            “You’ll hate it. It’ll be loud. And all those girls who were there, they’ll be screaming. That’s what they do for the Beatles.”

            “Maybe,” James answered doubtfully, as if he couldn’t believe anyone would behave like that. “I suppose you want to go up to Vallance’s.”

            Of course he did. Down in the basement there he could go into a booth and listen to the latest singles and hear what was new. That was the draw, the music. He’d played guitar since he was thirteen, and old instrument one of his aunts had passed on when she saw how he liked what he heard on the radio. He learned to play it properly, the lessons his father insisted on, hours of practicing scales and classical pieces, and enough theory to understand how songs were put together.

            And once he realised how simple it all was, pop music had bored him. Until the Beatles came along. With three singles they’d made him realise there was more to it than he’d ever imagined. He’d bought them all, worked out the chords and listened to the way the voices all worked together. It was a new world. And he wanted to step into it.

            Once he was working he’d be able to save money for an amplifier and an electric guitar. A Burns, like Hank Marvin played in the Shadows. He’d find a few others who loved the new music and form a group. Give it a little time and they’d be able to play youth club dances. Church halls. And if things went really well there was always the Mecca. After that…well, it would be fun, if nothing else. His dad would hate it, but by now he was used to that. He couldn’t live his father’s life.

            He picked out three singles, the Saturday girl with the beehive hair and tight skirt telling him to go to booth three. He and James were cramped inside, but then the music began and he was lost, listening to the lines the guitars played and the power of the drums. Beat music, they called it, and the term was right. It needed the beat to work properly. James looked bored, but ten minutes later it was over. Chris was smiling as they walked out into the sun on the Headrow.

            In the end they simply went and caught the bus home, the long pull up Chapeltown Road. James was itching to go, to put in more time revising for his O-levels, as if he didn’t do enough already. They were the only people on the top deck, the windows wide to catch the breeze. They were sitting right at the front, the best seats, where overhanging branches would hit against the glass as if they might break it.

            James stared straight ahead, lost in one thought or another. Chris gazed out of the window. The street was full of dark faces. West Indians. A few white people remained, passing through the crowds like fading ghosts. The business signs were colourful, each one offering a mystery. It was a different world. A dangerous one, his father said. But the world was full of fear, according to him. It seemed strange when the man had fought in Burma during the war. What could be so fearful about home?

            Soon enough he’d be home. The usual Saturday summer dinner, ham, lettuce and tomato with salad cream. He knew he should spend the afternoon revising, trying to make some sense of calculus. He’d try. He always tried, until it defeated him and he’d put the book away in frustration and pick up his guitar. That always made sense, the logic of chords and notes.

            Another month and he’d be washing the ink from his fingers for the last time. He’d hand in his books and walk out of school, take off the tie. Then life could begin. Sometimes he believed that he’d spent all his life just holding his breath, waiting for something to happen.

            The bus juddered to a stop across from the war memorial in Chapel Allerton. Wreaths of paper poppies laid in the two minutes of silence last November, still stood against it, their blood colour faded to pink by the weather.

            He hadn’t even been born in 1945. He could only faintly remember the very end of rationing. But so many of his father’s generation still lived in that time, as if the fighting had never ended. He’d heard their evening conversations over a bottle of whisky, the longing reminiscences of their finest years, when they were allowed to be real men.

            He stood.

            “I’ll see you on Monday,” he told James, receiving a nod in reply. At the bottom of the stairs the conductor rang the bell. Chris jumped off before the bus stopped moving, almost stumbling until he found his feet.

            A new England, he thought as he walked away. That was what they needed.

Leeds, The Biography

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It’s an idea that’s been at the back of my mind for a year or so – telling the stories of Leeds through the ages. Not the facts, there are already some excellent volumes that do that, but fiction, a series of short stories, going from Roman times to the middle of the 20th century.

It had been an idle idea until yesterday. Then, digging around online I came across an interesting piece. In 1901, which digging for the Allerton Park estate in Chapel Allerton, workmen unearthed a stone coffin that didn’t contain an entire skeleton. There were only a few bones left in it, along with a coin from about 350 AD. Somehow, that sparked me, a catalyst. So here is what will hopefully be the first story in Leeds, The Biography.

To offer a little background, Leeds may or may not have existed in Roman times. There’s written evidence of a place called Cambodunum about 20 miles from Tadcaster, on the road to Manchester. And both Street Lane and Stonegate Road might have been Roman roads. Might. Additionally, it’s possible that there was a stone ford across the Aire, and Cambodunum was where Holbeck now stands. A lot of ifs, ands and maybes. But put together with the coffin, it’s enough of a structure for a story.

CAMBODUNUM

WIDOW’S WEEDS

 

“I don’t see why they need a coffin, anyway,” Bellator said. “From what I heard, there wasn’t enough of him left to be worth burying.”

            The cart moved slowly along the rutted tracks, branches rubbing along the sides as the ox plodded on. It had taken the best part of two hours to load the stone coffin and lid, and with each dip and lurch it seemed as if the axle would break.

            “Their choice,” Lucillus told him with a shrug. He was a heavy man, somewhere around thirty, his knuckles covered with scars, a thick, ruddy beard on his cheeks. He reached for the wineskin under the seat and took a drink. “They paid good money for it. It’s the Christian way, put them in the ground so they can go to heaven.” He’d been the one who’d done all the work, chipping away at the rock until there was room for the head and body, just like any other coffin, then shaping the lid. Bellator was just the carter.

            A hot gust of wind burst out of the west and scoured their faces. Summer, Lucillus thought wryly. That was the way it had been this year. Usually even prayer couldn’t keep the rains away. But it had been dry since early spring, the grass brown and dead, dust kicking up and choking the throat whenever a man walked.

            “Almost there now,” the driver said. “It’s well before the road to Eboracum.” He shifted on the seat, big belly rolling, and used the goad on the ox. It didn’t seem to make any difference; the animal didn’t move any faster

            Lucillus hadn’t come this far north before. The settlement was just south of the river, a cluster of twelve houses around the stone ford. When he ventured out, it into the country he knew so well he could almost travel it in his sleep. He felt safer there, where family and friends were close. Troops had come to Cambodunum three times in his life, once a whole century of them, exotic men babbling away in languages he didn’t understand as they pitched their tents overnight, buying food and drink. Next morning they’d left so early that they could have been figures from a dream. When the order for the coffin came, he’d been taken by surprise. He worked a little with stone when he wasn’t trying to grow crops.  And with this weather there wouldn’t grow. The pay for the job was too good to refuse; it would keep them going for two months, himself, his wife and their two children.

            Bellator turned on to a smaller track, hardly wide enough for the cart.

            “They’re a strange family,” he said. “Done well for themselves, selling to the garrison over at Adel and up in Eboracum. I don’t know what they’ll do now he’s dead, though. I can’t see her running the business and the son isn’t old enough yet.” He leaned over the side and spat.

 

It had taken a pair of slaves most of yesterday to dig the grave. Under the topsoil the earth was hard as iron. Out in the field the crops were all withered and hopeless, and bones showed through the flesh of the cattle that milled around, snuffling around hungrily for food. Not that there was any to give them. At this time of year they should have been able to crop the lush, dark grass. But what little remained was dry, brittle, with no nourishment at all.

            She’d looked at the accounts he kept on long rolls, taking out a wax tablet and spending hours over the calculations. There were coins in the chest, but half of those were owed, bills that needed to be paid soon. Without a good harvest and fair prices for the cattle they wouldn’t be able to see out another winter here.

            He might have had an answer. He always seemed to have the answer, using his charm to arrange a loan here, to haggle down a price there, and leave the other person feeling he’d done them a favour. It was a strange talent, she thought, but he’d used it well. They’d prospered, moving from farmhouse to a villa as grand as any Roman official. And then he had to let himself be killed by a boar. Killed and torn apart so that all they’d managed to a find was a leg and half an arm, still clutching a spear.

            “Mama?”

            Vassura turned away from the window to face her son. Morirex looked so much like his father that it made her heart ache every time she saw him. But where Glevo had always seemed so assured, in control of everything, the boy had all the uncertainty of youth. Still, he was thirteen, what could she expect from him?

            “What is it, sweetheart?” She kept her voice tender and smiled at him.

            “The men are here with the coffin,” he told her, in the voice that had deepened just a season before.

            She’d heard them arrive, the harsh squeak of an axle that desperately needed greasing and the shout of the carter.

            “I’ll be out in a moment. Give them a cup of wine and gather the men.”

            “Yes, mama.”

            Alone, she wandered through the room, touching every object she passed as if bidding each one farewell. In a way she was, Vassura thought. A farewell to him. He’d be under the ground very soon, ready to meet his god.

            The way Glevo had embraced the new religion had always seemed strange to her. But he’d seen it as the future; that was what he’d said. He’d found something in it that eluded her. She was content enough with her small household gods and a small offering in the stream at the bottom of the valley each spring. At least he’d never mocked her for what she believed, little as it was. He’d been a good husband and father.

            Just stupid at times. Why he’d gone after the boar on his own she couldn’t understand. In the past he’d always taken at least two slaves with him when he hunted, men he trusted. This time, though, he’d left soon after dawn, certain he’d be back well before sunset with meat for them all. It was as if he’d wanted to prove himself in some way. Instead they hadn’t found him until the following day, after the wolves had taken everything of him they wanted. The men had brought the remains home in a sack, reluctant to show her until she’d insisted.

            She’d kept her tears until she was alone, cold and rigid as a corpse herself in bed. She’d forced herself to wait, not to show all the turmoil that filled her; the children needed to see her strong. Morirex had been uncertain what he should do, whether to cry like a child or become the man of the house, firm and unemotional. Narina had wept. She was eight, no more than a little girl still, and the world swept over her at the loss of her father.

 

“We’ll ease it down there,” Lucillus said. The four slaves looked at him doubtfully. He’d arranged two stout boards from the back of the cart to the ground. Together they could manage it; after all, they’d been able to put it in the cart. He glanced at Bellator. The carter shrugged and took a sip of the wine the boy from the house had offered.

            Lucillus pushed the men into place then climbed into the cart.

            “Right,” ordered. “Pull and take the weight as it starts to move.” Very slowly the coffin began to shift. At first it seemed as if they’d never succeed, then, as the sweat started to pour on their faces, it scraped over the wood, sliding down over the boards until it touched the earth. “Pull it!” he yelled. “Pull!”

            Then it was there, sitting in the dust next to the deep hole. Lucillus took a long drink of the wine, still breathing hard, and looked back at the villa.

            He didn’t have the words to describe it. Just the size of it, easily twenty times larger than the roundhouse where his family lived, never mind the barns and stables that stood apart from the building. And the workmanship, each block of stone dressed and even. Part of him wanted to go and run his fingertips over them, to soak in the craftsmanship that was more than he could ever manage. Whoever lived here possessed the world.

            A few more minutes and the lid was propped against the coffin, heavy leather straps under it all. Now there was nothing to do but wait. He leaned against the wagon. The sun beat down hard on the back of his neck and he wiped the flesh dry with a rag.

            “All downhill on the way back,” Bellator said, studying the sky. “If they hurry up we’ll be home well before dark.” He sighed. “Typical rich. They always take their time about things. Even death. Expect everyone else to wait on them.”

            “Are there many like this?” Lucillus asked.

            “Many what?” He coughed and spat.

            “Houses.”

            Bellator snorted.

            “You ought to travel more. This is small compared to some. Go up near Eboracum, that’s where the real money is. The proper Romans. You could fit four of these in one of the villas they build themselves around there. And more slaves than you can count.”

            Then he stood straighter as the door opened.

 

Vassura had prepared herself carefully that morning. The maid had dressed her hair, sewing in the bun at the back, and she’d dressed in her best stola, the one he’d brought back six years before from a trip to Verulamium. She’d never worn in before, keeping it packed away in a chest, only pulling it out to hold against herself, to feel the quality of the material. Today, though, she knew nothing else would do.

            What were they going to do? The question kept nagging at the back of her mind, the way it had since she’d seen all that remained of the man she’d loved. They needed something for the farm to survive, one of those miracles he said his Christian god could provide for the believers.

            Morirex and Narina were waiting in the atrium, the maid behind them. Vassura took a deep breath, picked up the sack and opened the door, moving with the gravity and weight of a widow.

 

She was beautiful, he thought. So clean, no dirt anywhere on her skin. The woman seemed to glow through her sorrow. She approached them with slow steps and greeted them all with a small bow of her head. The children stood just behind her, a boy with dark, curly hair holding hands with a girl who kept dabbing at her face.

            “Thank you,” the woman said quietly. She bent, placing the sack inside the coffin and with a shock Lucillus realised that the story was true; there really was next to nothing of him left. The woman stood, then bent once more, opening her fingers to show a silver coin, letting it fall softly onto the sacking. “For the ferryman,” she explained. “Just in case.”

            He watched her, taken by her sadness, the long, slim fingers with their golden rings. Minutes passed as she kept her gaze on the coffin, then she lifted her head and said, “You can finish now.”

 

She stood, her arms protectively around the children’s shoulders, as the men sweated and grunted, moving the coffin over the grave, then lowering it gradually out of sight. From the moment she realised that he was dead she’d known the place for this. He’d stood here so often, looking out over the valley as the sun rose. Sometimes she’d come out and stand by him, watching the way the light shifted and grew, and for brief moments she could understand why he cherished this place. Buried here, when his god called him he’d rise up and see all this one more time. Then, maybe, his shade would think of her again, with love.

            The carter and the mason left, the sound of the wheels echoing loudly into the distance. The men began to fill in the grave, earth piling on the coffin until it was hidden. She remained in the same place, still there after the maid had taken the children indoors where it was cooler. She stood and kicked at a straggle of weeds, the only things that would prosper in this dry season.

            What are we going to do?

Musings on Monk

On By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

My other job – well, one of them, anyway – is as a music journalist. It’s something I’ve done for the last 20 years and helps me combine my two great passions, music and writing. Over that time, inevitably, my tastes have changed and broadened. From listening mostly to what might generally be termed rock, I’ve moved towards world and folk music, both quite broad churches. But you can add in some classical, mostly sacred choral music, and a smidgen of jazz. Today is a jazz day. More specifically, it’s a Thelonious Monk day. Monk on his own, just letting his mind and fingers wander around tunes.

 

As a pianist he’s unique. All too often his playing sounds on the edge, as if it might fall into complete dissonance. That’s especially true at the start of a tune, when he seems to be feeling his way into a piece, some chords played delicacy, others hammered, with notes and harmonies that shouldn’t fit but somehow do. And he sounds as if he’d be just as happy with a barrelhouse piano as a full-size Steinway grand. Whether on standards or his own compositions, he’s instantly recognisable, always throwing in a surprise, be it a beautiful, lyrical run or a change that offers a lurch, a shift in rhythm. In its own way it’s very meditative music. The meditations are Monk’s. He loses himself in his own vision of the music, and that vision is unlike anyone else’s. To this day, the better part of 60 years since he appeared on the jazz scene, there hasn’t been another like him.

 

He may well have had mental problems and a drug habit, as some have claimed. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter to me. I only know him through his music, and it seems that when he sat at the piano, his particular genius emerged through his fingertips. He played solely for himself. He was lucky in that people liked it, even if many didn’t understand it. With bebop in the ascendant, he happened to be in the right place at the right time. To hear him perform April In Paris, one of those glorious standards, is to see someone open up the petals of a flower and arrange them anew.

 

As a music journalist, to return to his work is a way to cleanse and open the mind again. As a novelist he can be an inspiration. He didn’t attempt to play to the crowds. He didn’t soften things, he didn’t round off the corners just because it would be easier to the ear. He was true to himself. I was to be the writing equivalent of Monk when I grow up. If I ever develop the courage.

A Few Thoughts To End March

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized2 Comments

March has been an eventful month. Right at the tail end of February At the Dying of the Year came out, the fifth Richard Nottingham mystery, and a book I’m very proud to have written. It cut deep into my soul and drained me emotionally to write it.

Then, for March, my publisher scored a Kindle 100 deal in the US for The Constant Lovers. The upshot is that the book’s been featured on the Kindle 100 page and pushed by Amazon. And, to help, the publisher lowered the prices of the other ebooks in the series. Having kept track during the month (as well as pushed them on Twitter and Facebook – sorry!) it’s definitely had an effect. At one stage three out of the four books were in the Top 20 in the Kindle Historical Mystery section. I know, a small sub-genre, but it made me very, very happy.

As if that wasn’t enough, I finished the rewrite of the sixth Richard Nottingham book, Fair and Tender Ladies, and heard back from the publisher – within 48 hours, no less! – with an acceptance. The result of this is that I’ll end up with four novels out during 2013, a pair of Richard Nottinghams, The Crooked Spire, my medieval book set in Chesterfield, and the one we’re coming to next.

March 29 was the publication day for Emerald City. It’s a very different kind of book for me, and the only one to date that draws on the write what you know theory. It’s set in Seattle, where I lived for 20 years, set in the just pre-grunge (hate that word) music scene, and it’s a murder mystery featuring a music journalist (which I still am, although I’ve never actually murdered anyone. Yet). But it’s the closest to the present day that I’ve come, although the central character is female, a change suggested by the publisher for very practical reasons, as it meant that the excellent Lorelei King could narrate the audiobook, and she does a superb job of it.

There was also a week’s break in Whitby, no snow but a withering wind off the sea for most of the time. Yet it was curiously enjoyable, discovering a church with beautiful medieval wall paintings in Pickering and a day in Durham, where I’d never been before and seeing a Norman cathedral. I’m more familiar with the slightly later elegance of York and Lincoln, so airy and light. By comparison, this seemed somewhat oppressive. The city itself, however, was lovely. And, of course, a walk along the beach to Sandsend and a little time at the abbey.

Now I’m back where I should be, in the Leeds gas strike of 1890, trying to catch murderers and find a missing girl.

To any of you who bought one of these books this month, or at any time, thank you so much. It sounds trite, but I really do appreciate it.